TEMPO.CO, Bogor - I Wayan Dipta, Indonesian Deputy Minister for SME and Cooperatives opened a two-day Workshop, part of the ASEAN project on Strengthening Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Business and Technology Business Incubators (TBI) last week. The project is a follow-up to the Leaders' mandate to enhance SME development through strengthening Business and Technology Incubators in the region.

The project aims to deliberate on the different incubation models for adoption by Incubation Centers in ASEAN to provide effective and efficient support for entrepreneurship development. The models derived from a baseline study undertaken in several ASEAN Member States as well as in Japan to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the TBI Centers in the countries.

The Deputy Minister also launched the ASEAN Business Incubator Network, an important platform to further collaborate and exchange information to encourage and support techno-entrepreneurship in the region.

Subash Bose Pillai, Director of the Market Integration Directorate of the ASEAN Secretariat, emphasized the importance of well-informed and knowledgeable incubation centers.

"This workshop helps contribute towards building confidence of those operating the incubation centers by equipping them with knowledge, to help support short-comings faced by SMEs by strategically addressing them so that the SMEs community survives the early stage of development and thereafter."

Takako Ito, Minister Counselor and Deputy Chief of Mission of Japan to ASEAN recognized the importance of the role of SMEs to economic growth and reiterated Japan's continued support to SMEs in ASEAN. The Workshop also deliberated on possible future programs of the Network including an ASEAN Co-Incubation Program, ASEAN network of mentor and experts for Incubation, the establishment of a database to share success stories and promote technology transfers, and an ASEAN business matching and business plan competition.

Nearly 30 TBIs in ASEAN have indicated their interest to be part of the ASEAN Business Incubator Network. The Workshop was participated by representatives of ASEAN SME agencies, incubation centers, venture capitals and incubation experts from ASEAN and Japan. This Workshop is supported under the Japan–ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF), which has supported SME nine projects since its establishment in 2006--including the SME Incubator Project. (*)